Here’s some video you don’t see every day: Larry Marchant, a respectable, well-coiffed South Carolina Republican lobbyist whose clients have included major players like the state Chamber of Commerce, describing in uncomfortable detail his alleged affair with a leading female gubernatorial hopeful.
“I had an inappropriate physical relationship with Nikki Haley. What happened was, one time, one of those things. … I spent the night with Ms. Haley, and we had sexual relations. We had sex,” says the married Marchant, wearing a pinstripe power suit and pink tie, in an interview with WCBD in Charleston.
Haley is vehemently denying it ever happened.
“This may be the worse decision I ever made in my life, only will time will tell. But I know in my heart what happened, and she’s knows in her heart what happened,” Marchant says. And I just felt like I needed to bring this out. Because I just know, 10 years from now, if I look at myself in the mirror — ‘Why didn’t you say anything?’ It’s not a matter of, ‘Why did you say something Larry. It’s ‘Why didn’t you say?’ We had several drinks, we went to dinner, we went to a couple bars, we were with a lot of people — you know, it just happened. … I know she was making some very, very strong statements about her relationship [with her husband] and it bothered me.”
Marchant resigned Wednesday as a paid consultant to Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer, another gubernatorial candidate.
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